Latest / OneLegUpAlex Media / Jacob Barringer Tells His Story Of Beating Childhood Cancer On Alex Garrett's One Leg Up Network 9-25-24

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Jacob Barringer Tells His Story Of Beating Childhood Cancer On Alex Garrett's One Leg Up Network 9-25-24 · OneLegUpAlex Media

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's your host, Alex Garrett.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Well, guess what.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Here on the Alex Garrett One Leg Up Network, we
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: have back one of my buddies, Jacob Bringer. Jacob b
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: speaks on X. Jacob Welcome back to my show.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Hey Alex, Yeah, happy to be here. It's always great
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to sit down and have a conversation with you.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: We we caught up in spring training and got your
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: thoughts because you run the Yankees Empire along with a
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: few others, and you know, I think what we talk
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: about the spring is what's happening is a little more
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: than we expected, maybe at the time because we weren't sure.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: But here we are one game away from clinching the division.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: About that, yeah.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: You know, I've always been pretty optimistic about the team.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if it was going to be us
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: or the Orioles that came out at the end of
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the at the season. But now that we have a
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: ninety nine point nine percent chance of clinching, you know,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: with the magic number being one game, Yeah, I'm extremely
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: happy about it. It's been it's been an up and
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: down season, as you would expect. No team has one
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: hundred wins since the first time since twenty fourteen, and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, it's it's been an interesting season, but I
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: think the pieces are finally coming into place here at
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the right time.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: I think what happened was they got a lot of
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: injuries early on, which we thought would never really come
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: back from.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Yet Schmid's come back.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: John Birdie, who forget people forget, played a key role
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: when he was playing in April early May, and now
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: he's back at full force.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Of course, Rizzo looks like himself again.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know he hasn't been a homer yet,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: but he's getting his hits and he got a big
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: one the other night. So the point and heal to
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: the points. All these guys have come back and they've
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: really come back into their own.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think what's happened to us
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: in previous seasons is we've always had the injury bug.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And you know, a lot of teams deal with that too,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: but for the Yankees, it seems like we always have
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of our key impact players out. And you
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: were in what you said earlier is kind of right.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: You know, we would have the injuries, but then we
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: can never pull ourselves out of that slump. But I
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: think we've witnessed that happen now. I mean we've we've
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: done really well. I think the last game that we
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: lost was that unfortunate game against the Red Sox. And
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: we're cooking. We're cooking now at the right time of
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the season. And a lot of that's because we did
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: get a lot of those impactful players back.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I know you follow the ball down in the Carolina's
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: talking about your local team as well. I see you
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: down there following that team.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the Gastonia Baseball Club. Yeah, it's it's funny,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: it's and this is really whenever you think about the postseason,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: how crazy it is and how it's really just a wash.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: The Gastonian Baseball Club is part of the Atlantic League
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Atlantic Professional Baseball League, and it's a league that has
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: ties to the MLB, the Major League. The Major League
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: I actually picks up players from the ALPB sometimes and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: buys contracts from them. And you'll see a lot of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: different players come in through that league that are trying
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to get back into the majors or have you know
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: age doubt or that. It's like Clint Frasier, we all
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: remember him. He played for the Charleston Dirty Birds. This
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: year before he retired back in July there. And then
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: there's just some other you know, players that have previous
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: MLB experience that you'll catch on some of those teams sometimes.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: But my team, it's the third year of existence for them,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and they've won i think just over sixty five percent
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: of their games over the three years, which is the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: highest win percentage in the league's history, and which is
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you know that that's a pretty great win percentage. And
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: they had the most home runs of any ball club
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: this year, the best record. We're really cooking going into
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the postseason. They enter a three game series against the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Charleston Dirty Birds, lose the first two. They're out of
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the playoffsady. So it's just crazy how that happens. You know.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, and you were up at the stadium
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: earlier the season, by the way, and then we got
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: to catch up next year. But you look at those
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: two different things, right, got the minor league ball, the
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: independent league ball in the major leagues, that independent minor
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: league ball feels fun to be at every game, right
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: The energy is so electric because the crowds into it
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: every game.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely. I mean down where I'm at near Charlotte.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: We have the Charlotte Knights, the Triple A affiliate for
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the White Sox, who have not been great this season.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: But it's always cool to go to Charlotte Knights game.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: There's always great attendance. I think they have some of
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the highest attendants in all of the minor leagues. A
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: beautiful ballpark with a great skyline, maybe one of the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: best skylines, and all the Triple A ballfields, and yeah,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: it's definitely interesting and cool to go to those minor
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: league games, see some of those players come up through
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the ranks, and you know, maybe even check out the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: rail Riders whenever they come to town. It was a cool
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: opportunity to see you know, Oswald Parraza and uh, you
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: know Ben Rice before he came up, and some of
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: those players too.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, it's fun.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: And of course we had our eyes on Somerset because
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: all of those guys went through there too. So it's
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: been it's been an interesting minor leagues and of course
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: the rail Riders keep going.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: I think the Rennegade's been doing.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Good, so you know, it's been and the Patriots, I mean,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: they've got a great minor league system from the Yankees
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: So it's been interesting to watch.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about Jacob Berenger for a minute, because I
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: know this month means a lot to you because you
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: post about it and you're very open about your beating
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: cancer and you know, kicking ass and whatnot. Now it
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: is Childhood Cancer Awareness Months, so maybe people that follow
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: you may not be aware you got this you had
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: this cancer when you were younger, right, Yeah.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: So it is Childhood Cancer Awareness Months. For kind of
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: coming up on the tail end of it here and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: through through my Twitter slash x account. I did do
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: a big post about it in the beginning and did
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: a charity donation, and I always like to bring more
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: eyes to things like that because it's you know, it's
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: a disease that affects everybody, and unfortunately, you know, it
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: affects children too. I was eleven whenever I was diagnosed.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: It was October thirty first, so Halloween of two thousand
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and seven, and then basically, you know, had that eight
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: month treatment. I was diagnosed with stage four Burket's slimphoma,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and you know, at the time, the prospects weren't great.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They basically ended up having to do a experimental treatment
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: sort of. They basically threw all the drugs at me
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to see what would work, and almost miraculously it did.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So yeah, now I'm here talking to you about it,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: and I will be sixteen or seventeen years out coming
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: up in May. So it's uh, whenever I think about
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: this month, and whenever I have those other friends and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: people that I uh, those friends that I made through
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: my experience, you know, because we were all kids, it's
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: good to celebrate them, right, So, uh yeah, it's definitely
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: a month that I like to draw some eyes.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: To talk about your love of baseball that got you
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: through this cancer.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know, I was a kid, and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it was interesting. I think it was just the year before.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Actually it was a season leading up to me being diagnosed.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I mean I was playing Little league and that was
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the season that I probably had my best hitting season
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: of my young baseball career. I'd hit my first home
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: run that season, and I mean I was all around.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I was all about baseball at that age and just
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: watching the teams come up. And it wasn't too long
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: after I was out of treatment that the Yankees won
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: their last World Series in two thousand and nine a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: funny story about it was. It's kind of funny how
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: information spreads about people, especially whenever something happens to a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: kid and adults start talking about it, because people were
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: always I had a lot of issues that were leading
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: up to me being diagnosed with the cancer where because
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I had tumors that were in my head, so it
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: was affecting my eyesight and you know, made my left
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: eye turn and close involuntarily. And it was funny because
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: one parent of another kid that was on my team
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: had heard or was telling people that what was wrong
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: with me is that I'd been hitting the head with
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a baseball, and that was not the case. It was
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: actually cancer. I wish I'd been hitting with the baseball instead.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm just kind of being around the game,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and you know, looking forward to that next season, looking
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: forward to me personally being able to get back on
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: the field. I mean played baseball, basketball. I was getting
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: ready to get into football too. I was ready to,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: you know, come get out a treatment, build my body
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: back up, and get back on the film and start performing.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: The uh and and I know that the Yankees that
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: got you through it just because you became a big panim.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: But I have to say, if you don't mind me
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: asking this, the pain endured during this whole process. I mean,
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: it's something you don't wish on anybody, But can you
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: walk us through it real fast?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And did this.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Experience change your perspective U once you knew you beat
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: the cancer?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that. That's a great question. And that's
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: That's one thing that a lot of people don't like
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: to talk about, is the pain or a lot of people,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of get queezing whenever they start thinking
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: about this stuff. But I've always been an open book.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: And for me, one of my perspectives is, you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: since I've gone through that, I've always believed that, you know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: pain is relative and you really find out what the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: human body can take whenever you've gone through a really
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: painful disease like that. Now, every cancer is different. I had.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I had Burker's lamphoma UH, and since I was stage four,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I had tumors basically all over my body. So the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: first tumor started in on lymph node in my neck. UH.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: It traveled up to my brain, tumors around the brain,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: down my spinal column, into my internal organs and affected
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: everything but my liver I believe, but what the result
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of some of those tumors was, it did cause you know,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that immense pain just from the cancer itself, because I
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: had tumors pressing on nerves. I remember being outside waiting
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to be picked up from school and I had, you know,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the tumors on my spine were pressing on those nerves,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and those nerves let down actually led down to my
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: legs and I had an intense leg pain and it
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: was just kind of hard for me to stance. I'm
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: laying down waiting for my mom to pick me up,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: just sent a lot of pain. And uh, theo that
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: were in my abdomen and in my stomach press single
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and my internal organs from my stomach to my pancreas
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: to my spleen was causing a lot of pain in
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: my stomach as well. And you know, I would go
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: to the doctor and I would tell them about the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: leg pain, and the doctor would say, you know, well,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: you know you're getting ready to hit puberty. It's probably
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: growing pains. You know, stuff like that, because no one
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: thinks that a kid who looks relatively healthy that's eleven
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: years old has cancer, right.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it's amazing.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: You just brought this up because I was wondering how
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: the doctors weren't getting you through it. It sounds like
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: some of them at the beginning were kind of I
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: would say denying it right or something like that.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I wouldn't say denying, but I just
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: don't think the thought crossed their mind. Really. I mean
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: there was a lot missed definitely throughout my cancer experience.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I mean I whenever I started having issue with my
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: issues with my eye that I brought up earlier, I
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I went to a neurologist. He thought I
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: had a subdural hematoma from playing football and as a
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: result of a concussion, so it was putting strain on
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: that muscle and making the eye move, which was not
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the case. It was a tumor pressing on those nerves.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: I had multiple MRIs and see T scans done. They
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: didn't find anything then. And this is over the course
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: of about two to three months leading up to me
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: actually being diagnosed. The way that I actually found that
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I was diagnosed was I I went to the eye
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: doctor to look at my eye, to actually like look
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in it and see what the issue was. He looked
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: in it, looked at my mom dilated it and said,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: if his eye doesn't come undilated by the end of
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: by the evening, take him to the hospital tonight. If
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: it does become undilated, you can wait till the morning.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: So my eye did become undilated. She took me to
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the hospital. Then they did a more comprehensive lookover of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: my body, saw the lump that was kind of bulging
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: out from my neck, did a biopsy on it. It
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: was supposed to just be a biopsy, but once they
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: cut open my neck saw what was in there. It
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: was probably about a three to four four inch large tumor. Uh.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: They just ended up taking the tumor out and then
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that's basically what confirmed like, Okay, he has cancer. So
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: they did a more comprehensive look looked, you know, did
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the MRI, did the whole dye thing, and saw him
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: just countless tumors just you know, all throughout my body. Uh,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and you know, got diagnosed and they had to put
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: together a treatment plan for me.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Did you go down the chemo treatment route?
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: And if so, what can you tell parents of kids
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: going through this today and even adults that are very
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: nervous about having to go through this, What what's your
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: advice to all ages today.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely I did. I went just chemotherapy. I didn't
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: have to do radiation or immunotherapy. Thankfully, I didn't have
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: to do a bone marrow transplant through this. I know
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of my friends have had to do that,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: especially my leukemia friends. So I did straight chemo, some
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: really tough ones in there, and you know, of course
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: there's the effects that come with the chema. I mean,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: everybody knows the dramatic effects of losing your hair, losing
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of weight, like that's things that everybody thinks about.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: But you know, there there was a situation where, you
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: know where it does really deplete your immune system, your
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: white blood cells, everything like that. So all the bacteria
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: in your mouth start to cause sores in your mouth
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and you can't eat because you know your mouth is
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: full of sores. It hurts to eat. So there's just
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: all these different kinds of pain coming from different places.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And that's just physical. I mean, as a child, you
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: see your parents that are that have a child with cancer.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I'm an only child, I'm an only son, so having them,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: you know, deal with this that was going on. Obviously,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the financial burden of it all. It was. It was
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a lot for people to take. And I think I
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was at a perfect age at that point for me
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: because I was old enough to understand what was happening
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and what was going on, but I was young enough
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: to never have the thought cross my mind that it
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: would take me right. So I think that that's what
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: helped me and through that. Ever since going through my treatment,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: ever since coming out of it, building my body back up,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and even having ancillary things that are happening now where
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you know, every every month or so, I have to
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: do an immunotherapy treatment on myself because some of my
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: counts for my immune system never came back. So I
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: still have, you know, things I have to do that
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: now that are as a result of my cancer. It's
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: just about mindset for me, and it kind of I
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: try to go back to that eleven year old mindset
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: of you know, I know what's happening to me right now.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: But if I have the mindset that I'm going to
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: make it through this, that I have to be strong
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: for those people around me that you know, I can't
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: just lay in bed all day, I can't feel sorry
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: for myself. I have to get up and make this happen,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I have to show, you know, the universe, God, whoever,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to fight for this life that I have.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: So it's always been about mindset for me.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: You know this is powerful in my fiancees watching this,
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: she's getting emotional about just hearing your story because it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: something that I know you've talked about even in the
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: public space. But before we get there, the first time,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: Jacob that you know, you beat cancer, you get through
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: all this and you touch the baseball again or even
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: any sport, Like, what was it like getting back out
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: on the field. Did you get back on the field
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: in any capacity?
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Man, it was great. I think the first thing
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I did because the way I came out of treatment
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: in May on May eighteen, two thousand and eight, that's
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: when I've officially done with chemo, and I spent the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: entire summer building my body back up, you know, eating
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: my viamins, eating eating the food I needed to eat.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, whenever I was going through treatment, I went
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: from being around one hundred and twenty pounds at eleven
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: years old down to about eighty so I had lost
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: forty pounds. I'd make some weight back up that summer
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: after I got out of chemo, I shot up like
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: six inches, so I was really tall and skinny and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: lanky and trying to get my coordination about my body.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So I spent that summer, you know, kind of learning
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: in my body again, getting my coordination back, eating what
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: I needed to eat, being healthy, you know, working out,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: playing the sports. I wasn't able to get back to
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: baseball first, but I believe the first sport I got
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: back to was basketball, which was, you know, my primary sport,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and whenever I was in school, that's what I was
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: best at. I mean, I always loved playing baseball and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I was good, but I was always best at playing basketball.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: So I got back on the court, and because I
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: had grown that six inches, I went from like five
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: two to five eight and then grew a fit.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: It's like you became a center overnight or something I did.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: It was it was awesome because obviously that's what I played.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I was a center at that age because I was
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: taller than all the other kids, and I just had
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: this energy and about me. Like even if I wasn't
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the best shooter at that age because my coordination was
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: all out of whack, there wasn't one rebound or one
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: shot that was going up where I wasn't touching the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: ball or tipping the ball to someone or grabbing down
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the rebound. I just had this veracity about me that
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I even look back to now in my old age
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of twenty eight right that I'm like, wow, you know,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I had so much energy just to just have that
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: thriving life and that's something I want to try to
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: live through today. But it was great. And then getting
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: back on the baseball field, I was able to play
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the next season, coming back that next summer, spring and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: summer and really get back in the swing of things
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: literally and figuratively. And it was good to do that
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: again too.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: So it's it was definitely classmates get root word.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: What I mean by that is when you went back
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: to the basketball court, even the field, where your classmates
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: like cheering you on, because we see a lot of
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: those videos where kids come back from a cancer treatment
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: and then they're just treated like a hero.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: That happened. Did the school get word that you were
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: going through this?
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, the school. It's interesting because whenever I
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: was going through it, the school itself was very supportive.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: The community was very supportive, and I do definitely need
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to shout out to everybody that helped me through it,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: because it wasn't just me. I mean, aside from my
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: parents doing everything they were doing, dealing with everything financially, emotionally.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: My mom was in college at the time getting her
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: teaching degree. That kind of stuff. The community really did
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: come through. I mean the local fire department and police
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: departments ensured that I actually got a Christmas that year.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Whenever I was going through cancer, my school did a
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: big fundraiser where a kid it was called Links of Love,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: where kids wrote on these pieces of paper and then
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: linked it together, just little notes to me and little
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: things to you know, like hey, keep going, that kind
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of stuff, And I mean it was a it was
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of links. I mean it took up my
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: entire yard. And I remember being young, bald and having
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: that those links of love link together and we made
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: a jay and a b out of it. We put
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: it in the yard. So it was really cool to
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: see that support from Afar whenever I came back, like yeah,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it was kind of interesting because it was almost like
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: business as usual, like, hey, you know, Jacob's back playing
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: that he may have went through this crazy thing, but
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it's you know, hey, that's over. Now it's time to
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: go out and have fun and win this game. Right.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: So I wouldn't say there was a big, you know,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: standing ovation for me to get back out there on
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the court with. But people knew. People were like, wow, yeah,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: that's the kid who had cancer last year and now
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: he's playing again.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Uh So, by the way, I kind of liked that
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: that you didn't. I don't think you yourself wanted to
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: be seen as this inspiration. You just want to get
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: back out there and play, right, you're eleven, twelve years old.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Want you just get back out there and feel that now.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I mentioned fundraising.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: You actually in your twenties hour doing that through X
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: and I'm very fascinated because you literally use the monetization
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: you get to benefit of foundations.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Tell me what that's about.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, throughout my cancer experience, I've been
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: very fortunate to come in contact with a lot of
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: great organizations and just nonprofits and charities that have not
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: only helped me, but helped, you know, count with other
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: cancer survivors, one of those being Cancer for College. I
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: actively work with them in fundraising just in my free time.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I've helped set up events with them here in the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Charlotte area, and we've had a lot of great impacts
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: over the years. That's that's the charity I work with
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that Will Ferrell is a big supporter of and so
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it's cool to be able to work with him on
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: some of that stuff. So I really got into doing
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: fundraising and charity stuff, probably as I was going through
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: high school, just as ways to not only benefit the community,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: but also you know, it helped me with scholarships and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: cancer for college. Ended up paying for a large majority
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of my college. I ended up graduating debt free, which is,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: you know, crazy to think about these days. But whenever
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I started on Twitter or x, you know, I didn't
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: really have much of a platform. I think I had
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: maybe three hundred followers after the first few months, and
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I just started. I was just talking about the Yankees
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: and making connections with people. But as it grew and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: as more and more people interacted with my stuff and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I got the opportunity to monetize and that kind of stuff,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Wow, I said, you know, this could be
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a really cool opportunity to you know, use the monetization
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that I'm getting from other people interacting with me, engaging
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: with me for a good cause. So what I do is, basically,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: whenever Twitter decides to pay me a Twitter check every
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks or every three weeks or how often
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: they do it, what I'll do is I'll put out
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a question to everybody that follows me, everybody in the community,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: in the Yankees Empire community or you know wherever else,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: to say, like, hey, tell me a nonprofit or a
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: charity that means something to you. And what I'll do is,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: every time I get one of those checks, I'll take
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: all those names of those organizations and I'll put them
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: in in a random spinning wheel, and then it'll randomly
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: select that charity, and of course I look at it
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and make sure it's legit and a good nonprofit and
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and then I'll just donate the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: entirety of my monetization check to that charity because I
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: don't need the money really that Twitter is trying to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: give me on this stuffs. And believe me, it's not
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: a lot like this isn't a ton of money. It
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: can be you know, anything from fifteen to forty dollars
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: every couple of weeks. But I think It's just a
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: small way that I can give back and not only
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: doing something good for that nonprofit, but also making that
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: person that engages with me feel like they've made a
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: difference too by voicing their support for this charity. Because
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: everybody has a reason why they want to support a charity,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: whether it's a personal experience or something like that. So
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: it's I love giving people the opportunity to help make
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a difference in whatever way they can.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: And I know that you also make a difference by
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: going out there and speaking about your story. I mean,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: you're out there doing public speaking on your story, Jacob.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: What are the reactions after you're done and you're off
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: the stage. If you people can run up to you
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: and say, oh my god, this story is amazing, what's
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: the reaction?
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I love that question. Yeah. I have been up
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: on stage talking about my story since probably high school.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I would be whether it's a fundraising event or if
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I was speaking directly to insurance companies about like, hey,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: we still have ancillary things that happen to it after treatment,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and this is why it should be covered. Like that
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Just different messages that I'm putting out
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: there whenever I do my public speaking, I try to
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: keep it fairly lighthearted, like a light roller coaster. I
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: try to keep things humorous in a way, but then
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I'll get real and say, you know, like the things
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that actually happened, and how this affects me and what
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I'm doing today and how it should affect you and
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And whenever I do get off stage,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: it's usually a mixture of laughter and crying from people,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: which I've always thought was really funny. It was because
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I'll be up on stage and I'll tell a joke
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: about something that happened with me and treatment, or I'll
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: just kind of humorly talk about my experience, just kind
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: of an offhand type way. And I've had people after
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: the show or after me up there speaking saying like,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: hey man, you know, you should look into being a
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: comedian someday or something, and I'm like, okay. But then
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I've had other people that have come up to me
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: just stop bawling their eyes out, like oh my god,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: You're so amazing and all this other stuff, which makes
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: me feel weird because I'm just talking about my story
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and that's not what I'm trying to get out of it,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: you know, I want you to get the message. It's
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: it's not about me and what I went through. It's about, uh,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the reality of the situation and how that you can
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you can have an impact on you know, people that
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I went through it like me, and to help inspire
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to make that impact. So it's it's definitely been an
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: interesting reception whenever all positive though, whenever you know and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: talk about it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: It's so interesting because my my, when my nick you
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: nurses were around the nick you doctor who just passed
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: away by the way a couple of weeks a couple
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: of months ago, doctor Charmar, but they would have reunions
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: and I always love going back to speak. So did
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: they ever have you at your reunions for the hospital
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: that you were at?
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Did they ever do that type of thing?
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I wish, I wish we did do
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: more reunion type stuff like uh. I remember whenever I
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: was still going back for my checkups and my immuno therapy.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I had to do that in clinic for years after
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I was out of treatment, up until I was twenty one,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and then I was able to do it at home.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I was able to do like a home health care
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: thing we would do like a small little you know, hey,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: ten years out of chemo celebration or something like that.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: It was just the nurses and doctors. But yeah, you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I wish we did do more reunions. More of what
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I've had the opportunity to speak at is you know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: fundraising events or events for the hospital, for the hospital,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: for the charity organizations that I'm working with, you know,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: raise funds for you know, their nonprofit doings.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: So Jacob, do you get to talk to kids who
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: are dealing with cancer today, going through cancer treatment today?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah? You know, whenever I had first come out, there
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: was a camp that was around me called Camp Care.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: It was a it was a camp for cancer survivors
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: because a lot of those kids didn't get to go
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: to care because they were undergoing cancer. So I went
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to that camp up until the time I was sixteen,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: because I'll let you keep going, you know, after you're
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: out of treatment. Up until I was sixteen, and then
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: when I was able, I became a counselor. And it
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: was real funny because I was always the counselor over
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the eleven and twelve year old boys. So I was
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: a so whenever I would be the cabin leader of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: all these kids that were my age whenever I was
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: going through cancer, and a lot of them were going
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: through it too, So I got to have a lot
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: of really nice one on one conversations with these kids
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: that were wise beyond their years. And I remember people
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: always saying that you know about me when I was
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: that age because I was going through all that stuff
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and it makes you grow up quick. But I really
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: got to see the other side of that situation talking
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: to those kids and how they're dealing with it in
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: different ways, but still great ways. So yeah, that was
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: definitely a terrific experience.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: You just mentioning interesting, why is beyond your years? Do
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: you feel like undergoing this whole ordeal and experience grew
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: you up a little faster than maybe even your classmates?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I think I think so in some very specific ways.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Uh there's there there's pros and cons with it. So
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: you know, for me, I definitely got to see what
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: mortality looks like. I had friends that I was going
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: through it with that unfortunately didn't make it through like
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I did. I got to understand what happens in all
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: these hospitals and uh, just these medical areas of uh
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: you know, just understanding like how an IVY poll works,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: asking questions about the medicine and understanding that kind of stuff.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Is eleven?
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Are you listening into conversations that you may not have
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: been even may not have been privy to, like where
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: you always sort of of trying to evedrop to hear
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: what your parents' information we're getting or what.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say. So my parents were always very open
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: with me on the conversations that were happening. I remember
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: whenever my mom basically came in the room to tell
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: me that I had cancer, it was you know, she
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: just said the perfect thing, right, and I just immediately
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: understood it. There wasn't any tears from me or you know,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: we both just kind of looked at each other and said, hey,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: you know, let's get after it. Let's beat this and
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: move on. But yeah, I mean I can recall that
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: maybe there were a couple murmurings in the hallways as
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I would go down, and I would like say, I
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: was in a particularly bad point in my treatment where
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: they didn't think if I was gonna make it or not.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I do remember hearing some stuff about that, but it
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: never really affected me at that age.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Talk about socialization in the hospital because you're eleven years old,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you wanted to socialize with, you know, kids
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: and even family members. Like talk about the socialization because
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: there was also this idea that you had to be
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: sort of distant from everybody because of the germs and whatnot.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Right, was there that idea?
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. I mean I was definitely immuno suppressed. I mean,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: all my counsel were down, so I had to be
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: very careful with that kind of stuff. I was in
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the sixth grade whenever I was diagnosed, and I was
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: eleven years old, so I was getting ready to go
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: through puberty, which is a crazy time in everybody's life.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And I'm missing school, so I'm not seeing my friends
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: at school. I'm not seeing all the changes that are
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: happening there understanding you know, what's cool, but's not cool anymore.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: So what I ended up doing is I made a
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: lot of friends with a lot of nurses and childlife workers.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I remember getting yelled at all the time because I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: would go out into the hallways and ride my IV
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: pole like a scooter because I just wanted to go
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: out and meet people, talk to people. I mean, it
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: didn't matter if they were a doctor at nurse another
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: kid that was also going through it. Like me said,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I craved that socialization and uh, you know, making those
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: connections with whoever I could at that age. So and
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: then that transition out of that back into you know,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: regular school life. You know what's cool, what's not cool anymore?
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: It almost made those things feel you know, not as
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: important in some cases, but uh, it was definitely definitely
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: gave me another perspective about.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: It one hundred percent.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I know you travel a lot, right so traveling and
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: adapting to your current stage of your health right now,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: is that still a thing? Is that like something you
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: have to be mindf love even as you're traveling.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Kind of sort of like I mentioned before, I have
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: a monthly UH immuno immuno therapies that I do for
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: my immuno globlin cells. Basically, my IgG is too low
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: for my body. And what your immuno goblin G carries
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: or like your your vaccine nations and it's basically a
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: protein in your blood that leave historical tracers or things
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: that you've already beaten, whether it be different viruses or bacterias.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: So mine's too low. So what I have to do
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: once a month is I have to stick up a
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: few needles in my thigh, alternate thighs each side, and
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: basically imfuse it for an hour and a half. And
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: what I try to do is I try to line
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: up my trips, like if I'm going on business or
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: if I'm you know, just traveling somewhere, I'm going to
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: be around a lot of people. Like whenever I went
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: up to New York this past June or July, I
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: did my infusion right before I left. So I try
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: to line up things like that. Now daily life, I
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: really don't think about it too much. I'm you know,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I like to keep my hands clean. I mean i
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: wash my hands like twenty times a day, and I'm
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: just kind of a naturally clean, orderly person. And I
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: think cancer and going treatment maybe like that a little
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: bit too. I like to keep things really nice. But
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, I mean it affects me in that way,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: but I don't have to do a whole lot of
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: planning for it.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Uh Well, that that's interesting. And tell people your your
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: regular work. When when you're not on Twitter talking about
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: the Yankees, what are you doing on the daily?
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's uh, it's funny. I am a
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: product marketing manager for a large manufacturer of tape. So
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: it sounds you know, really fun and sexy. I know, right,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: but it's it's a it's a really great job. I
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: started out my career as a product manager, uh and chemicals,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: went to do cleaning machinery of vacuums and carpet cleaners,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and then I made the transition to tape, which is uh,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: it just was the right opportunity for me. Uh. But
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: that that that's the daily job. I you know, help
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: launch products, develop marketing plans, campaigns, follow through all this campaigns.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of project management that I do
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: whenever it comes to you know, product focused product project management.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, it's a great job. I love what
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I do. It's my first time being a product marketing
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: manager instead of just a product manager. So yeah, it's
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: been a great way to grow my career and yeah,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: basically my professional life.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: You said something just a couple of minutes ago which
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: really struck me. You said that certain routines you have
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: now is probably because of the cancer that you went through.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: So as part of the awareness, is there a trauma
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: that is you know, attached to it, like, do you
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: still have any trauma from that? And can people going
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: through it expect trauma from their their treatments?
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that you definitely that you know,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: people definitely can't expect some form of trauma. I mean,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: whether it be loss, you know, whether you lose someone
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: that you that you meet, whenever you're in a cancer ward,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: or if you're a family member and someone's going through cancer.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can have that trauma of loss, trauma
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: of pain and remembering that pain and all those things
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: you went through. I think that that can be a thing. Luckily,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like I've been negatively impacted too much
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: with that kind of stuff. It may show through in
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: other ways that I'm not aware of. That trauma is
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: kind of weird that way, but I don't feel it
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: affecting my day to day life too bad now fortunately,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: very fortunately. But I think for people, I think it's
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: just understanding you know what's coming and the best way
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: to approach it, and really having a nice support system
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: set up around you, whether it's your family, your friends,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: whoever else, whether you're part of an organization. There's different
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: clubs of people that are all cancer survivors or people
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: currently going through it. So just understanding you know what's coming,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: what you're currently going through, and the best way to
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: make it out of it, and uh, you know, just
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: try to keep be mindful about the things you're going
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: through for it. So but yeah, for me, not a
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: whole lot of trauma issues. I would say, do.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: The Yankees organization know your story? By chance?
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: Like, I know you tag them a lot, but do
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: they know your story? Does anybody in news know your story?
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think so, not not from the Yankees organization.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I remember the first time I went, my first time
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: going the Yankee Stadium was last season. It's something I'd
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: always wanted to do as a child and I never
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: got the opportunity. But whenever I started making big boy money,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I said, Hey, I'm going to go up there. So
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: last year I had the opportunity to go up there.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: And you know Anthony Rizzo, he's a cancer survivor as well.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So I did a little mini campaign of trying to
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: get people to be like, hey, Anthony Rizzo Rizzo Foundation, Uh,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Jacob's going up to the stadium. You should you should
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: let him meet you and shake hands. And that kind
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: of stuff, and uh that I don't I don't think
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: he ever saw that, but that would have been a
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: really cool opportunity, you know. But I don't think anyone
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: within the organization knows about my story. But they do
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a lot for people with cancer and stuff, So they do.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: And I was just gonna ask, when you see these guys,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: like I saw Rizzo and his teammates actually talking to
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: a group of kids this past September, what's that do
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: for you? Like, how does that make you feel when
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: you see these guys take time out to be with
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: these kids.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I think it's wonderful. I mean, Rizzo in particular, has
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: been one of my favorite players. I think he as
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a man's probably my favorite player on the team. And
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that's just taking performance and everything out of it. I
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: just think he's just a class act. Everything that he
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: does for his foundation, everything that he's done after being
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: diagnosed and beating cancer himself. I mean it's not just
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: with the Yankees. I mean he was doing this stuff
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: back with the Cubs.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: I Mean there's the reason why they did a whole
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: three four minute tribute to him, not just because of
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: his playing.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Days, but what he did in the community at Rick.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Chicago loves him and he definitely deserves it. So yeah,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I mean I love saying stuff like that because it
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: makes us kids feel so special. And it can be
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: the small little things like that, like whether it's meeting
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: a player or you know, being you know, going to
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: some kind of seminar like that and having people really
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: try to connect with your experience can really be a
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: turning point for a lot of kids and stuff like that.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: So I absolutely love seeing that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: I wonder about your parents real quick because obviously you
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: said their you're their only kid, and as you know,
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: my family's only kid too, So it's like they were
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: were fortunate that we were able to get all the
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: care from them and in the world. Right, So when
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: all this happened at eleven, what was your what was
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: your parents feeling? You said they were kind of calming
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: you down, But did you send any nerves in them?
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: How was their demeanor?
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's we just kind of air down
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and got through it. I mean this was two thousand
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: and eight too. I mean this is right in the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: middle of the recession. My dad ended up getting laid off,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Like I said, my mom was still going through college.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: This was her second time going to you know, she
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: had started out life as a hairdresser. Then she was
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: going back to school to be a teacher. And I
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: remember telling her like, hey, you know, if I don't
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: make it. This is me as an eleven year old, like, hey,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: if I don't make it, keep going to school, because
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: you're gonna want to do this after I'm gone. And
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: so she's still going to school because I'm telling her
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: that she still needs to go to school. All those
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: different bills that were coming through, you know, twenty five
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: or twenty eight different accounts paying on all of those
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: everything from radiology to surgery to you know, keep the pharmacy,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: to everything coming through for the hospital. It was a lot.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: You know, my parents, my mom, you know, basically fighting
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: with the hospital so we don't lose the house, that
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So, I mean we were really preoccupied.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I mean I was preoccupied with fighting it. Parents were
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: preoccupied with you know, taking care of me and trying
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: to maintain some sort of lifestyle that was going on,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: uh that we had leading into it. And luckily they did.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: You know, we caught some breaks there. We paid a
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: lot of money. Uh, the insurance paid a lot of money.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was no more college fund or anything
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: after that. But I came out of it alive, which
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: is the best that we could have all hoped for.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: There one hundred and now you got a great girl
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: by your side as well. I mean, I know she's
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: your your, your, your companion, your your you know, your
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: your partner.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean she's a budhead, but but I
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: love her. She's you know, it's I think we've been
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: together for twelve years now, so she's been with me
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: through high school and college and into my adult life
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it's it's been a great journey
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: throughout all those years, you know, learning each other and uh,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: finding new ways to support each other. And of course
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: there's bumps in the road and things you got to
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: go through. But yeah, she's definitely one of my biggest
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: supporters on a lot of the things. I do. Love that.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: All right, let's talk about the Yankees Empire before we
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: wrap up today. Where do you want to see it
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: grow to? Because we've talked about this a lot, like
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: how we can grow this.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Group.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, just keep tagging the players and seeing if
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: they jump on. But what's your vision for Yankees Empire.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, one milestone's coming up. We're right at nineteen
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: thousand members, which is already the largest baseball community on X,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: but we're closing in on twenty thousand members. We're going
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: into the postseason, so we have some new things coming
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: up with some giveaways that we're working through and figuring
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: out how to get stuff done for that for members.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: So that's coming up from a vision perspective. We're doing
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of work with external organizations and internally through
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: X as well. So externally, we're working with a lot
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: of different small businesses and now larger businesses for sponsorships
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: to help, you know, support their brand while they support ours.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Give our members the benefits of you know, getting money
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: off if they were to purchase something there, or if
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: they have a service that they want, you know, basically
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: saving them somebody down the road, or you know, giving
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: away some of their products. So we've been working through
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of that, and then internally, we're working directly
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: with ex's engineers, you know, the people employed by Elon
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: to help better the community kick out some of those bugs.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: One thing about the community is there's no bots, and
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: that's because all of us on the mod team, we
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: look and accept or deny every single account that request through,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and sometimes that could be like sixty to seventy bots.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: So we're trying to really fix that bot problem on
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Twitter as a whole. So we have some a lot
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: of really great things coming up. I think one of
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: the big ways, we're just trying to find more and
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: more benefits for people to actually join and make the
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: and make Yankees Empire, which I believe it already is,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: but make Yankees Empire the best place to talk Yankees ball.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, we have our guidelines, we try to keep
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: people safe. We don't want to censor anybody.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: And you seemed to hate our positivity sometimes. I don't
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: understand that sometimes, but you know, hey, we can be.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: No, it's great that you continue to be positive for
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: the Yanks. That's what we need, right, That's all. That's
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: what we all need to hear that more.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: I gotta say for those who don't know, Marcus Stroman
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: chatted out the chat and I gotta say that here.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the yeah, it was interesting because uh stro
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: he saw a post from one of our community members
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: and uh he ended up quote tweeting it with his
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: own little verbage on there too, So it was really
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: cool to see a player interact with the community. Uh,
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: we have some great men members of the community. I mean,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: we have Hope who's in the community. I believe Katie
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Sharp was in the community as well. We have some
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: of the guys from Talking Yanks like Joe's mcflies in
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: the community. So you know, we're getting we're getting more
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: and more people. But I would love to have a
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: player joint one day. They probably would never want to
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: with as crazy as everybody is in there, but it'd
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: be cool just to see one join, just for a
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: little bit. You know.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm right there with you. So we got to
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: just keep pushing it.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: And one of the things that Darth talks about a
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: lot a little in turn inside Baseball, but it's worth
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: noting for those in the group is to always when
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: you're quoting it, just keep the Inks Empire tag on that.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: I love that idea, you know, yeah, exactly, Well, Jacob,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: before we go, what how can the Inks be unstoppable?
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: I mean they're at the one game marked to clinch division,
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: but the sene one there, Jelly, looks kind of unstoppable.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: I hope I'm not jinxingthing here.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, well, if if anything does happen, I will
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: directly blame you. But no, it's uh, you know, I
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: think it's really just pieces are falling together at the
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: right time. And I know a lot of people hate
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: whenever you say this, but a lot of times the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: postseason is a wash. I mean, you got to click
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: on at the right time, you got to catch fire,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: you got to play well together, and it seems that
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you know, here at the end of the season that's happening.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of it's just understanding, you know,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: the lanes and where players need to play, making the
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: right decisions in the bullpen. Uh, making sure that we
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: have the best lineup out there every day. Uh. But
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I think that. But you can really tell that these
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: guys really care and support each other. I mean, if
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: you take a lot of one Soto's comments that he
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: said after we clinched at birth, you have Jasz Chisholm
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: in the locker room saying like, hey, I love this team,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I love the Yankees. We're when I go in a
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: World Series. I mean that speaks volumes that kind of stuff.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: So I think, just keep on doing what they're doing. Uh, stay,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: stay confident, play the game that they want to play,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: and you know, bringing home we definitely need twenty eight.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: We do.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Now, you're also a big baseball fan, and you've been
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: not complaining, but you've been sort of joking about how
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: they really are as the kids say to a glazing show, hey,
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: and not giving Gudge the credit. And I agree, I think,
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: you know what show he's been doing is good. But
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: look here in New York, you've got two guys, Aaron
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: Judge and Lindor are really caring these teams in a
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: lot of ways, and they're not getting any respect.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: I don't I just the Dodgers don't need show.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: Hey, I'm gonna say it right here, but Lindor's needed
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: on the Mets, and Judges clearly, you know, the leader
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: on the Yankees.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, just give more respect. That's all we're saying, right.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, you know part of that is love. I
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: love the piss people off sometimes, so I like making
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: those little funny memes or saying things just to just
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: debate people into some reactions because I know they're super
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: passionate about it. I could talk about it forever because
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: I do feel a little similarly that their mark. I'm
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: a marketing guy, so from an MLB perspective, they're repetitive
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: marketing efforts. It's over time. I feel like it's going
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: to hurt more than helped. I mean, they just keep
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: banging on this cash cow whenever they have an extremely
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: diverse product with extremely diverse players. I mean, you have
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Jose Ramirez, it's knocking on the door of a forty
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: forty season, and I think I haven't seen anything about that.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: You had Brent Rooker, who had an amazing season with
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the A's.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: Of course, that's the Ages actually are really set up
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: for the next few years.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: It's just a shame that, you know, and you know what.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: You can blame the owner all you want, but Oakland
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: City is just terrible when it comes to sports.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: They've lost two already. That's going to be third.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: So I think waiames should be shifted onto the city
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: of Oakland as well. But no, they're leaving Oakland really stacked.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: I think they're going to be formidable.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: You know. And you never thought you'd say about the
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Aids recently.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it's funny because the A's has always been
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: kind of a farm team for us, you know, like
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: we end up buying out their players as as they
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: reach you know, free agency, and it's gonna be interesting
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: to see what their strategy is over the next few years.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of hope for them. I
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: feel really bad for their fans out in Oakland that
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff, And it'll be interesting to see how
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: successful they are out in Vegas. I think that they
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: will be from a business standpoint, but yeah, they are
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: set up. They have a lot of really young, exciting players.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of teams like that that have these
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: really young, exciting, diverse players that are you know, lightning
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: rods that should definitely be getting some more spotlight on them.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm not in with the whole show hey thing.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that every post should be about you know,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Aaron Judge or that they shouldn't be spotlighting show Heyo
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: Tony most of the time, but you know, a different
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: posts within an hour is it's kind of ridiculous, especially
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: when you have an extremely diverse league with lots of
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: benefits for those for those customers that are watching your product,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: that are passionately watching your product.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: You look what they've been doing all season now since
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: the trade deadline. By the way, it looks to me
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: like that deadline really worked out for the Tigers because
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: they are now right in the middle of this and
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: that's something we weren't talking about. But they are a story.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: They are a story of the year as far as
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: I'm concerned. Even they don't make it.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: What a story.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's crazy too, because they chanted a la
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Jack Flaherty and they would have never done that. It's funny.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: It's funny how that worked out because it basically means
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: that the front office gave up and that the club
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: house was like, hey, we're not done yet, and then
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: they started playing really well. So it makes that front
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: office decision to get rid of one of their starting
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: pitchers look really dumb. And I don't know how they
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: feel about that, but that'll be a story for another day.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: I've always thought the Tigers. I always thought that the
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Tigers this season would be a really fun team to watch.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: And they got heard that Carston Kelly. I thought he
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: was pretty good for the Tigers, you know. I mean
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: that was a bit of a surprise trade too. But yeah,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: we'll happen to see what happens. But for now, Jacob
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: We're almost there, about a week away the postseason and
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: so much to go. Uh well, we'll have to catch
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: up in October because I think we're gonna have a
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: fun one here.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, for sure. It sounds good. It's always good
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: to talk to you.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: Jacob b speaks on X follow him and follow us
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: at the Yankees Empire.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining the One let Up Network.